A review by just_one_more_paige
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

 
This has made like, every single list of "best books" recently. But most importantly, for me, it was on the Aspen Words longlist for 2024. And while I am not necessarily trying to full-read the whole list this year, I am still using it as a guide for books that I'm thinking about trying. And so, onto the extremely long waitlist I went. 
 
Here's what Goodreads has to say, blurb-wise: "In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where, decades prior, immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows." 
 
This is my first novel by McBride. And let me just start by saying, before I get into anything else, what a master of bringing people and places to life he is! The setting - time period, location, population - is brought to *life* in these pages. And these characters are all so individual, so *real* in that uniqueness. That was an unexpected highlight in a couple ways. First, because it was just so good. And the audiobook narrator did an equally phenomenal job bringing it all even further to life with his narration. And second, because, if I am being honest, the blurb makes this seem very much like a tense, covering up secrets, murder mystery style novel. And yes, there is a murder and there are secrets and there is definitely tension. But all of it is very much not presented in a typical mystery-thriller way. It's like the murder and the corpse in the well are merely a convenient excuse to introduce us, the readers, to Chicken Hill and the characters that live there. It was almost incidental to the entire novel. I mean, you do find out who the corpse is, and how it got there, and all the details around it are cleared up. And yet, those details were like a sidebar to the main event - again, the place and people - and I found I honestly wouldn't have cared if it wasn't cleared up. This is both a positive and a negative, in my opinion. I mean I was so invested in the characters that learning about their inner thoughts and daily lives and interactions was enough: great writing. But then the plot itself never took off enough to hold up or hold my interest: less ideal. 
 
To continue to focus on the positives... The meandering sense of storytelling is, stylistically, like if someone you knew was talking to you and telling a tale. It's so easy to listen to, and you get caught up in side stories and extra bonus character descriptions and all the other added color along the way.  This also allowed for some gorgeous highlighting of so many hidden/less-explored communities of history explored: the breadth of Jewish immigrant culture, northern Black America, state run mental “hospitals,” historical treatment of/for people with a variety of disabilities, and more. The intra-cultural nuances are particularly great. Groups that normally get flattened out by media and “outsiders” - Black people, Jewish people, people with disabilities, intersections/overlap therein - are given full range and depth to be individual within their greater descriptors/communities. And the feelings and alliances of these smaller intra-groups for/amongst each other is fascinating. Just, the vibrancy McBride presents is stunning. 
 
Thematically, other than all the cultural aspects already touched on, and, of course, the murder (side) storyline, the major representations are of the racism inherent to this country.  And really it's upsetting to see how little rhetoric has changed in the years between the early/mid 1900s and now. Seriously. The rhetoric of America “going downhill,” with its best days behind it, was as alive then as it is now. Just, call a spade a spade...you're racist. Pure and simple. And in many instances in this novel, as well present day, misogynist and ableist. Then there's the hypocrisy of those bragging about being Mayflower descendants (so, bragging about being an immigrant) complaining about new arrivals (also immigrants) taking their land/jobs/money and being uncultured. Like, it boggles. And then, it doesn't, because it's so damn familiar. The greater resignation to that being the landscape of the nation is rendered so well. As is the life-giving support of the connection and community amongst those who are on the outside of the white power structure. It's a lot of process in the way that the nuances and complexities of everyday life always are. To finish, let me just tip my hat to the hope that lives in the ending. I do love poetic justice. It's so damn satisfying, even if, of course, it doesn't happen as often IRL as one might want. Here's to fiction, for granting us that satisfaction.  
 
So, yea, there is a murder here. But this is mostly just a story of people and the importance of community as family, in the way it sustains us all, our lives and our spirits. It wasn't what I expected, so that may affect some of my (or other reader's) reactions. But even still, the life in these pages was palpable and I can do nothing but respect that. 
 
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